Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo: A Tale of Two Instagrams

If their administrations could be summed by Instagram alone, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo would be a fascinating study in contrasts. And one of the two top Empire State politicians is clearly much more at home on the popular photo sharing site.

In an email, Julie Wood, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg, who manages the mayoral Instagram account, described making the page a mixture of branding and beauty.

“We use the account to and highlight important initiatives and projects of the Administration’s, and also to showcase all the wonderful parts of New York City,” Ms. Wood said. “I try to choose photos that are both visually compelling and also relevant to our Administration’s long-term goals … or current focus on any given day.”

“We launched our instagram account just a few months ago but since then we have been using it to give the public a firsthand view of the activities of the Governor and State Government – it’s been a more visual addition to what we communicate via twitter and facebook,” Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman Matthew Wing wrote in an email.

So far, Mr. Bloomberg’s Instagram persona has clearly caught on far more with the site’s users. The mayor has both a page for his administration and a personal page that, according to Ms. Wood, was created to focus on his wider philanthropic and advocacy endeavors. With both pages combined Mayor Bloomberg has amassed over 45,000 followers on the site compared to Mr. Cuomo, who has just 1,265 on his single account. Mr. Bloomberg’s many celebrity cameos (including the Muppets, Lady Gaga and even a Jonas Brother) have unquestionably helped fuel his page’s popularity, but the different approach the two politicians have taken to the site could also explain why the mayor has had more Instagram success than the governor.

Bloomy meets the Muppets. (Photo: Instagram)

Both men are notoriously image-conscious with Mr. Bloomberg eager to brand himself as a technocratic administrator focused on finding data-supported solutions rather than partisanship and Mr. Cuomo, who is an especially careful steward of his image as a no-nonsense, bipartisan reformer dedicated to rebuilding a formerly broken state government apparatus. However, Mr. Bloomberg seems to have been more willing to allow his aides to create a specifically tailored version of his brand for the Instagram audience. If Mr. Cuomo truly wants to make a dent with the infamously twee aesthetes in the Instagram demographic, he might want to take a page from Mr. Bloomberg’s playbook and lighten up his muscular mixture of heavy machinery and action shots with some star power, scenic sunsets and maybe even a few jokes.